Producer: Margo Okazawa-Rey
Berkeley, California is an important home and reference for disability rights movement and
culture. The vision and advocacy Judy Heumann and Ed Roberts, for example, inspired the
Independent Living Movement and helped establish the first Center for Independent Living in
Berkeley and the passage of Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990. Since then countless
others including activists of color have advanced the rights of peoples with disabilities. And,
what about outside the US?
Today, we are in conversation Kym Oliver in the UK and Ekaete Umoh in Nigeria discuss the
Black women’s disability rights movement outside the US.
Guests
Kym (they/them), is a thinker, writer and lover of community. They are the co-founder of The
Triple Cripples – a platform dedicated to Black Disabled Women, and Gender Expansive people;
and of Our Living Archives – a charitable, intracommunal healing organisation. As well as sitting
on the Board of the Black Feminist Fund (BFF), Kym is a member of the Sisters of Frida
steering group and is also part of several social justice ecosystems, including Decolonising
Economics and Healing Justice London. An established Public Speaker with two TEDx talks,
Google, NASA, Virgin Media and WISE under their belt, Kym is also an experienced Group
Facilitator, having delivered workshops for the Paul Hamelyn Foundation and others. In addition,
Kym has sat on funding decision boards for funders like the Joseph Rowntree Foundation
Movement Assembly and Synergi.
They come to this work with vast experience working personally with a variety of stakeholders
across industries, political affiliations, cultures, and ethnicities, in the roles of founder,
researcher, creative and community organiser, and have provided consultation and mentorship
for entities including the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), Centenary Action Group,
Arts Marketing Association, and Women Leaders South West. Kym has contributed to
curriculum for several courses and has presented and delivered lectures internationally at
various universities on topics spanning Race, Gender and Disability, including at Oxford
University, Kings College, Goldsmiths University, Open University and SOAS.
Passionate about psychosocial approaches to understanding the cultural harmonies and
dissonances within marginalised communities, Kym is adept at understanding how to
communicate with, access and understand the needs of groups and communities. Both their
PhD Research and Master’s studies centre marginalised populations and explore race, gender,
disability, culture, history, psychology, art, media and decolonised approaches to co-creation and
knowledge production. Kym believes that synergy between Black Disabled feminist researchers
and community members, is central to paving the way toward building truly loving Black
Feminist.
Ekaete Judith Umoh is a polio survivor, an Alumni of Ford Global Fellowship, an international
disability and inclusive development expert with-over 23 years’ experience relating to gender,
disability, and development issues. She is currently the Inclusion Coordinator, with the UN
Resident Coordinator’s office, where she supports the implementation of the UN Disability
Inclusion Strategy at the National level, providing technical assistance to the Technical Working
Group on Disability Inclusion.
In 2000, she founded FACICP Disability Plus, an organization that seeks to promote disability
inclusion in all gender and development efforts and also the initiator of THE PURPLE CORNER
..A safe space where an intersectional approach is used in addressing sexual and gender based
violence against women and girls with Disabilities, while promoting disability inclusion in gender
and development agenda in Nigeria. In 2014 she contested, won and became the first elected
female National President, of the Joint National Association of Persons with Disabilities
(JONAPWD) an umbrella organization of all disability organizations in Nigeria and went on to
lead her team to fight for the passage of the disability Bill which was passed in into law 2019
after 17 years of advocacy.
Ms. Umoh has contributed immensely to the body of knowledge on disability and inclusive
development through technical assistance to so many international development agencies in
their programs and project, especially programs that target women’s empowerment. From 2003-
2006, Ms. Umoh was advisor to Hesperian, California, on the Project “Health Handbook for
Women with Disabilities” and led women and girls with disabilities in Nigeria to review the book,
which has become a very handy tool for disabled women’s health globally. Ms. Umoh also is
recipient of numerous awards including being listed on the 100 Leading Women on Nigeria
Women Annuals-2024, an annual showcase of the accomplishments of outstanding Nigerian
women across various sectors.
Ms. Umoh is constantly pushing boundaries to promote inclusion for both disability and gender
as crosscutting issues. Ms. Umoh envisions a society where equalization of opportunities for
persons with disabilities would no longer be a subject for debate, but a clear mandate to
achieving social justice for all
